Page 77 of Billionaire Corruption

“I have no proof that he had Alana killed,” I reminded her. “All I have is that footage of a man who looks a lot like Kyle Anderson, but I can’t say for sure. “

Kyle was Brock’s driver, a man I had seen up close many times. Unusually tall, he had a slight stoop when he walked, as if to make himself look smaller. When I’d seen the video of the tall man going up the Ladden escalator at ten o’clock at night, I had immediately wondered what he was doing there. Was Brock there, and if so, why? There was no footage of Brock coming down either.

I had called Brock shortly before resigning and told him that he would be leaving me and my family, as well as my fiancée in peace. No more threats or scare tactics. We were moving on with our lives and he should too, preferably away from Ladden. If he found himself unable to agree to that, I would talk to Agent Dyer about the video and how I recognized his henchman. I would recall how Kyle had, in the past, done some dirty workfor Brock, like procuring escorts and drugs for a group of Chinese executives who wanted to party. I also happened to know that when one of the party guests collapsed due to an overdose, Kyle had simply driven the unconscious person to the nearest hospital, dropping the body on the street without even taking them inside.

Police would take an interest in a story like that, I said, I was sure other details were likely to emerge.

Brock had been very silent on the phone, ominously so. But I was done with this world. I couldn’t quite see him coming up to Maine, waving a snow shovel at me in warning. He knew that I had more dirt on him, his involvement in setting up fake accounts and trying to evade tax, specifically.

“You don’t think he deserves to go to jail?” Grace asked me one night as we lay shivering under the scratchy sheets in her bed in the apartment over the shop.

“Of course, he does, but that does not necessarily mean that he will,” I reminded her. I often thought of my luxurious penthouse in the city, where the temperature was always perfect. Unlike here, where the thermostat was somehow always wrong and mostly, too cold.

Margaret had offered us her house as a place to live until she could sell it but Grace, perversely, wanted to stay in the apartment over the shop.

“I love it here,” she said, hugging me tightly. “Please can we stay here instead? I need to see the ocean; I love it when the ferry comes by.”

I didn’t particularly want to spend money right now anyway. I had received a message from the IRS involving back taxes that they had been able to claim from me, thanks to the information the FBI had received. They were able to locate additional income that I must have forgotten to declare. The back taxes and fine for non-payment were substantial, it cut deeply into my savings.

I had to tell her one evening that unfortunately, my financial situation had changed, and I was no longer a billionaire.

“You are also no longer single and on the market,” she said, pulling me close and silencing all my fears with a delicate tongue and a soft nibble on my ear. We had fallen into a comfortable rhythm in Port Victoria and as the warmer weather arrived, we started preparing for the wedding.

I had managed to get us an exclusive rooftop wedding venue for the reception, which was going to be a lunch for our families mostly. Considering that the number of guests would be low, I could spend more on flowers and food, which suited us anyway.

The scandal surrounding Ladden meant that I didn’t want to invite too many friends from my former life, and I didn’t want to invite UncleRichard either. My mother told me on the phone that he would feel affronted by that, and I told her I didn’t care.

“If all this makes you too uncomfortable to attend, I totally understand,” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she spluttered, “We’ll be there, of course!”

Elise told me the real issue was that they felt sidelined by the way in which I had taken control of my life, not involving them in the wedding planning or the reception. They had wanted to host the ceremony, perhaps invite some highflyers to an event at their house.

“This is not about them,” I reminded Elise.

“I know, but Father is trying to rebuild his reputation, he didn’t come out scot-free from the whole Ladden business,” she said.

“That’s his own fault,” I said. “Nothing to do with me.”

Meeting Grace’s father had been interesting. But Mick Bishop had shaken my hand, slapped me on the back and said with the friendliest of smiles, “If you hurt my daughter, I hope you know I will put a bicycle spoke in your heart before you can even think to call for help.” He paused and winked, “If you can live with that, we’re good.”

The day of the wedding arrived, a somewhat blustery day with patchy sunshine. Grace was nervous about the dress and the reception, seating her family with mine at the main table was a bit of a risk, considering that our mothers had absolutely nothing in common apart from once upon a time, birthing children.

But, again, I reminded Grace, this was not our problem.

Perhaps, this was one of the biggest lessons I’d learnt over the past few years, how to identify the problems I absolutely needed to solve, and which weren’t more than minor headaches that went away all by themselves if you left them.

Grace delayed coming back to the city.

She hadn’t been back since leaving New York months ago after the incident with the car. We booked into a hotel, but she went back to see her grandmother and brother and she was fearful about being out on the streets.

I assured her that the drama was over.

But I could see she was struggling to believe it.

One evening, I got a call from my Uncle Richard.

“I must have missed my wedding invite,” he said to me in a joking voice.

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